The cuteness I call Carter..(LONG Carter update)

Did I seriously make him?! Does it get better than this?

I haven't done a post in a while about how much Carter is growing. He is such a little man now, I can't get over it. He surprises us on a daily basis with new words and phrases and makes us laugh on all the time. I'm going to give you a little bit of what he has been up to.

Words

Carter repeats virtually everything we say, and he is also putting sentences together and communicating with us. He is going through a "hot" and "cold" phase where he likes to point out the temperature of everything. If he touches food that is even slightly warm, he shrieks and drops it as if it's the hottest thing on the planet. He definitely knows how to throw on the dramatics (wonder where he gets that from?). He also knows to blow on his food if it's not the right temperature. He is fascinated with the sun, stars and moon. I told him one night that it gets dark and cold when the moon is out. The very next night we were outside and he pointed to the moon and said "there's the moooooon! It's dark out. Scury." And then he hugged himself and chattered his teeth and said "it's cooooold!" It's amazing that I can tell him something once now, and he remembers! For the longest time, I'd repeat something every single day for a yearbefore he'd repeat it, or start to say it.
The other day we were driving and after Andy sneezed, I heard a little "bless you" come from the back seat. I just about died it was so sweet. Carter is also very good about saying please and thank you.. He says sorry when he does something wrong, but never when prompted. If I ask him to say thank you or sorry to someone or to me, he just stares. Such a stubborn little guy, never wanting to do what someone tells him (hmm, also wonder where he got that from?). But if he bumps into me, or drops something, he'll just say loudly "soweee mommy!" and I melt. Carter's newest thing is pointing out emotions like when someone is "sad." We were reading a book about pumpkins this morning, and one of them had a frowny face which he pointed to and said "pumpkin is sad" and Carter looked very concerned.

You'd think that because he can repeat everything now he'd be repeating some not so good stuff too, but he isn't really. He did say sucks the other day a few times, but I don't know if he was trying to say something else, or if he was just babbling. We had a scare in San Francisco last week with what we thought were naughty words. We were driving, and we thought we heard Carter say the F and the B word and it caused us to gasp, but then we realized he was pointing out the bridge we were driving on and a nearby truck. His pronunciation isn't great yet, haha.

I did a freaky moment with him over the weekend though. I was catching up on a TV show while Carter was playing with his toys on the floor. There was a moment in the show where a woman was hit by a car and was lying on the ground (it was not graphic or gory). Carter looked up, pointed to the TV and said "she died, she died." And then went back to playing with his toys. I have NO idea how he knows what died means or what death is so I found that experience a little nerve inducing for me. I tried asking him, but he just said, very seriously, "she died" and that was it. Eeek.

It's really an amazing feeling to be able to communicate with him. If he has done something bad, I will explain to him what he did wrong, and end the conversation with an "Okay?" And he usually looks sad and says "Okay."

Discipline

It's SO hard, I hate to discipline him at all, but I know he needs to know he can't pinch people (I blame daycare) and not to dump full bottles of water on the couch, or draw on the walls, etc. As much as I want to give him everything he wants and for him to be happy every single moment of his life, it's not good for his development. We give him time outs in his little chair in the living room, but they really don't last long. If he does something he is not supposed to, I firmly tell him to go on time out and point to his chair. He'll usually pout, or laugh and go sit in the chair on his own (it actually kind of amazes me that he listens). I make him sit there for about a minute, explain why what he did was not okay, and then let him free. It's hard because he usually finds me hilarious when I'm trying to discipline him and it makes me angry. He doesn't find me scary or intimidating, which I don't really want, but I want him to take me seriously without having to spank. I refuse to spank my child. There is a book out there on the 1-2-3 something method that I might check out soon.

Rar.

Food

What does he eat you ask? He still has his usual favorite - cheese, but he is one picky little dude. There is very little he will eat. He loves chicken (only if it is plain, not seasoned, and not in a sauce). I sneak him some turkey deli meat and call it chicken so he'll eat it, and he seems to like that too. The only fruit he will eat are bananas and apples, but he does love them. He will not eat most pastas and rice. He will only eat spaghetti noodles (with a teeny bit of marinara sauce or plain) because I taught him how to suck the noodles up one by one and he thinks it's fun. If the pasta is in any other form, it's "yucky." Including mac n cheese. Carter normally likes plain white rice, again if it is colored or has touched a sauce or anything green, it is off limits. His food tastes vary from day to day. Some days I can get him to eat something different and he'll seem to like it, and when I try to get him to eat it another night, he'll turn his nose away in disgust. I stopped forcing him to try foods a looong time ago, and we will never force him again (even though it did work most of the time). He trusts me more when I ask him if he wants a bite, he says no, and I don't ask again and respect his answer. It's so frustrating to know he'll like something if he gives it a chance, and he refuses, but that's life! He drinks almond milk now, usually at night before he goes to sleep and at daycare. We went through a soy milk and an organic whole milk phase (both of which I've read can be bad for him in large quantities) so we threw our hands up and tried almond milk. He liked it. I've found reason to why everything I give my child is bad for him in someway. There's always a new study. Sigh.

Sleep

While we had made great progress getting Carter to sleep in his crib this year, the past few weeks have gone downhill. He completely refuses to sleep in his crib. I've tried the CIO (cry it out) method again, but I can only let him cry for so long before I cave (usually 45 minutes is my limit). We've tried moving him to his crib as soon as he's asleep (doesn't work. he wakes right up), putting on his favorite movie (doesn't work), and giving him a bottle (doesn't work, and yes a baby bottle). He's two. We've spoiled him for too long by letting him sleep with us and we've created a little co-sleeping monster. The truth is, it doesn't really bother us that much, except when he decides to kick us or sleep sideways in the night. We actually like co-sleeping half of the time, and the other half we hate it. We have a plan to give him an official toddler room in the next few months, and maybe we can get him down if he has a big boy bed. Who are we kidding, the bed has nothing to do it with it, but he just can't be sleeping in our room when the new baby comes along. It will not work.

A BIG scare we had the other day. Carter got knocked in the head by a lamp and had the scariest looking bump, EVER. All is well though.

What he's into
He still loves good ole Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, but his 2nd favorite show is Wow Wow Wubbzy on Nick Jr. He loves cars, lego's, books, drawing, pretend cooking, rocks, parks, and pretend driving. I left my car door open in the garage the other day while I brought groceries in, and I turned away for two minutes and found him sitting in the drivers seat pretending to drive! He has quite the imagination already.

The Basics

I still haven't taken him in for his two year shots but plan to do that this week. I'm curious to find out his current height / weight. I'd guess he is around 27 pounds now, but I'm not sure. He wears size 24m clothes, finally (but still fits into some 12 - 18 month clothing). He has mild asthma and gets a case of bronchitis whenever he gets a cold (just like me), and we have a permanent nebulizer in our home that he does breathing treatments on when that happens. Poor dude. Ever since we started giving him gummy vitamins a year ago, he doesn't get sick very often which we love. He still wears size 4 diapers. I have a feeling we will skip size 5 altogether (hoping he will be potty trained by then).

He's still in the same daycare, but I plan to take him out two weeks after I have this baby, and stay at home with him and the new babe for 10 weeks (am I nuts?!). When I go back to work, I'll put Carter into Preschool as he will be three and eligible. Most of the preschools I've looked at are a little bit cheaper than daycare. Hopefully I can work out an arrangement so the baby won't have to go to daycare right away just like I did with Carter. Carter didn't start daycare until he was 1, I have no idea how we managed that, but we did.

Potty Training

We have a baby potty and the baby toilet seat that fits on a regular toilet. Whenever I put him on the potty (usually before bath time), he does pee it, but we really haven't pushed him yet. I don't think he is truly ready. Daycare is recommending I wait until he's 2 1/2 - 3, but we don't plan on waiting that long. I'm thinking we'll start really trying in January, and hope to have him completely potty trained at 2 1/2. The good thing about these kids being spaced out almost 3 years, is I'll only have one in diapers at any one time. Yay!

This is the longest update in the world. If you read the entire thing, you are amazing, thank you!